Heimir Hallgrimsson wants Ireland to flip mentality and take fight to opposition

Heimir Hallgrimsson has joked he may ask Fifa if Ireland can play the second half of matches first after a challenging Nations League double-header.

Hallgrimsson’s side trailed 1-0 in Finland on Thursday before fighting back to win 2-1, and somehow managed to survive a first-half onslaught in Greece on Sunday before responding only to shoot themselves in the foot at the end.

The Icelander, who will now turn his attention to next month’s fixtures against Finland and England, admitted after the 2-0 defeat in Athens that his side only seemed to start playing as it could when they had nothing to lose.

Asked how he could remedy that, Hallgrimsson said with a smile: “That is now our task, and we said it to the players in the dressing room after the game. We need to find that, what are we doing differently when we are down.

“We need to fight to get back in the game. Why can’t we just start with that mentality? I said, maybe as a joke, we should call Fifa and start playing the second half first, and the first half second.

“It’s something psychological, for sure. I’ve talked a lot about confidence. Once we have spells in game like now, I think we grow much when we show them the good things. Of course, the bad things we need to correct.”

Hallgrimsson’s philosophy is in stark contrast to that of predecessor Stephen Kenny, who wanted to play a more expansive brand of football than that to which the nation had become used.

The problem was that even though there were encouraging signs at times, results eluded Kenny’s team – they won just six of 29 competitive games under him.

His successor has made no bones about basing his blueprint on Irish football’s traditional strengths of organisation, commitment and industry first before